It's Take Two for the Portsmouth Short Film Night, with a second year of four events starting this Friday, Feb. 28.

A year ago this month it held its first gathering at 3S Artspace, which today co-produces the series along with Short Film founders Michael Rodriguez Torrent and Catherine Stewart, a husband-and-wife team and owners of Film Unbound.

"We had a great turnout on a snowy night in February," Rodriguez Torrent says. "We did it again a few months later; there seemed to be a demand and people enjoyed it. So, we're committed to doing it. And this year we're a little more organized."

But its film in flux, he says.

"In a lot of ways we're still trying to figure out what it is and what people are getting out of it and how best to shape that in the future," Rodriguez Torrent says. "We're definitely working on it."

The first year surprised in a number of ways, with the crowd it drew, the types of interests, who submitted, and how the format worked. That prompted the couple to tinker with the project.

The plan is to communicate more directly with those taking part, and continue making improvements throughout 2014.

"We originally thought it would be mainly filmmakers coming to see what others were doing and show their own work, but there's a lot of non-filmmakers," Rodriguez Torrent says. "I'd say it's about half and half, between those who might have something to do with the film and a fair portion of the general public."

The makeup has informed the programming, he says. "We try to make it an entertaining lineup for a broad audience."

Each event screens an average of seven or eight films ranging in length from five seconds to 30 minutes.

Initially a question and answer period followed each film. This year, films will be shown in blocks, with discussions held after each grouping.

"We're playing with the format, trying to figure out what works best," he says. "The (original) way was too much 'stop and start.'"

The question period demonstrated the audience's broad interests. Filmmakers tended to pose technical questions, while the general public asked about specific aspects, "like why the filmmaker decided to make a certain choice or where the idea came from," he says.

When the couple started the event they assumed regional filmmakers would be most interested — people who could attend the events. In reality, about half the films are regional, with the other half comprised of national and international submissions.

The first call for films brought in fewer than 40 works. The first call this year garnered more than 200.

The numbers allow for greater variety in the lineup. Rodriguez Torrent and Stewart screen all the submissions, looking for shorts that demonstrate different abilities and stages in a filmmaker's career, as well as genre.

"We want to make sure there's something for everyone, not just all those making first-time films, or all glossy," he says. "We try to put something in that inspire or lets people see what the filmmaker's getting at but doesn't quite achieve. This many submissions allow us to think more about the lineup."

The film topics and genres are "all over the place," he says. "There's dramas, less comedies this time, but documentaries and experimental films too."

While the increased numbers are great, it adds a lot of time on the two-person "office."

The event is free "and we want to keep it free," but reviewing entries and producing is time consuming Rodriguez Torrent says. The couple hopes someone else steps forward to help with the project.

This year's four events will be held in as many locations. First up, this week's gathering will be held at PPMtv. It will include a film from France and at least three regional works.

On May 29 the evening will move to the Portsmouth Public Library; August is unconfirmed, but the plan is to hold it in an outdoor setting; and December may be back at 3S Artspace if its construction goes well.

The hope is to find a permanent home by 2015 — just one of the changes anticipated for the coming year.

"We'll keep talking to people and finding out why they're there and what they're interested in," Rodriguez Torrent says. "We're committed."